*one* bad pci slot? also, bad NIC?

So I order a SB Live! from newegg about 2 weeks ago. The moment I put it in my carputer, it starts either crashing when trying to play any kind of audio or not even booting into windows. So I figure I got a defective card. RMA'd it, got a new one yesterday. So the same exact thing happens this time around. And this is on a clean format mind you (formatted comp with the new card in it and still got same symptoms). I figure it cant be the card then cause that is next to impossible to happen, twice in a row. So anyway, I move the card over to another pci slot, and it works perfectly. Been playing an mp3 in loop for about 2 hours now.

So the question is, is it possible to have just *one* bad pci slot? I was under the impression that pci just worked off of one bus, but I could be mistaken. Im a software guy, not a hardware guy [mind you Ive built numerous computers for myself, family members, and friends] I was thinking perhaps there is some irq conflict if I used *that* particular slot for *that* particular card? I really have no idea. But I just kind of want to know if I should consider that slot dead or just not functional for a sound card? I should also note that if I dont install the drivers for it while its on the "bad" slot (or goto safe mode and disable it), it wont crash/not boot. The second I install the drivers, it starts to crash.

On another note, Im having a problem with my connection on *this* computer. Everything seems like Im on a 28k modem. All the other computers in the house work normally. I have a cable modem connected to a switch, with 3 other computers connected to the switch. This comp used to run normally. Now within the past week or so, it seems to have slowed down by alot. I tried downloading a 10 meg file, and I was connected to the server at 8-10kbs on this computer, while on the other computer it was downloading at ~100kbs. This was to my universities server. And this is definately not the only server Im experiencing this on. It takes me a good 30 seconds to successfully open up any page on this forum, or any other forum for that matter! Bad NIC card? Its just an el cheapo $20 linksys pci NIC, but I dont want to buy another one if I dont have to ;p

Id go with aaron and say that network cables are one of the most overlooked causes of networking problems. put new ends on, check the pinouts, or just buy some new cables.

and as far as the soundcard, the sblive is known to be one of the balkiest pci cards, especially with what Im guessing is a kt133 or kt133a based board that you're running. They're are guides out there for the more popular boards on even what slots to put it in and other devices in to have it work properly without crackling. The irq steering is by pci slots, and they're usually grouped together, so what ever else shares with that pci (another pci slot, agp, acpi, usb root, etc) slot might not like sharing its irq with the sblive. That being said, the slot also could be bad.

-Nick

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Since when is insanity a bad thing?www.mp3vw.com

It may be the slot, but it would have to be related to the connector. There are not many lines going to each slot that are slot specific. Another possibility is it may have an issue with another device living on that same IRQ vector. Often times the bridge controller will assign a fixed IRQ per slot, unless you override it in BIOS. Try reassigning them and see if the problem follows the IRQ and not the slot number.

I have also seen one PCI slot die (had it happen to my bosses computer last week) It was the result of a power spike. Not only did it take out the PCI slot, it stuffed the power supply, CD-Rom and a ram slot as well.
I ended up moving the sound card to the slot next to it and it worked fine. Did the same thing with the ram. Bloody computers!

You might try removeing all the software networking components, and uninstall the NIC, this fixed one of my computers, when removeing if it asks if you want to delete somthing tell it yes, and when installing everything back tell it that you want to overwrite evean if what your writeing is older.
MS networking